Cutlery Update
Wednesday, November 26, 2008 at 12:00PM One of my posts, Delicata Squash, received a lot more feedback than the others. While I wish it was feedback of praise for the food, it was more along the lines of namecalling. "Idiot." "Monster." In public most people just shook their heads in my direction.
I ventured to Sur La Table, who offers excellent knife sharpening, to see what kind of options I had to ressurect my chef knife. As usual, all the girls had great smiles on their faces- until I removed the corpse from the coffin. "Mike..." I know. I'm a terrible person.
The knife is really beyond suitable repair. However, it is a Shun. Not only does Shun make the best knives, but they are known for the best customer service. The girls and I reminised of the chef who [accidentally] ran over his knife bag with his car. All were replaced free of charge. I have hope. One trip to the post office is all it takes to make my life complete again.
I can't read it- but I think that sticker looks really cool.
What most people wonder, is how did such a great expensive knife break? I was well aware that I was misusing the knife. In the kitchen, System D makes us perform unorthodox acts. So does laziness, and not wanting to get an additional tool dirty. Here is my collection of knives. Which one, is best suited to cut through chicken bones, and why?
Some may say- the biggest knife- the Friday the 13th knife. It's so huge it has to desecrate the enemy. It is large, but as we found out earlier, it is the incorrect choice. Second most common answer is the rectangle one, the 'cleaver.' Knife number four is not a cleaver. It is a vegetable knife, and is also a wrong choice. Knife number two, the santoku, looks wimpier than the chef knife so that can't be it. And knife number three looks like a smaller version of the chef knife so that can't be right either. If you honestly think the paring or serrated paring knife is the answer, you are hopeless in the kitchen, and most likely life.
I did not pose a trick question- one of these is ideal for bone crunching. The correct knife is knife three, the 'Yojimbo' knife. I know the question is difficult to answer without feeling the knives in hand and gauging heft. There is another angle that I intentionally left out. Check Yojimbo out now. By far the heftiest knife, it is best designed for the job. I will leave the remaining details up to a great cook, my brother, who left me this wonderful reminder:
Proves that length isn't everything.
As Alton reminds, the source of the Shun’s edge is its overall thinness combined with a very shallow grind (as compared to most German-style knives, whose grind is almost 2x steeper) meaning that its slicing capability is increased at the cost of strength at the blade edge.
If you do not have a proper cleaver I recommend that you break out a Christmas gift from a few years back. You may recall two knives that I brought back from Japan. One is shaped like a cleaver but is very thin and designed for slicing vegetables very thinly and quickly (using the same principles that the shuns are built on). The other is shaped more like a chef’s knife, and you may recall a knife of identical construction used as an offensive weapon in Yojimbo. This knife, if you look at it, has considerable heft, at least ¼ “ at the spine, ground to a very sharp edge, but without the thinness needed for delicate slicing. That is because this knife was designed for one purpose – to take apart huge fish. As explained to me, this knife was developed specifically to split a fish head in half, and we’re not talking about pond catfish here; hence its combination of sharp edge with a grind angle designed to act more as a wedge (a la splitting firewood) after the edge makes its entry, and the weight in the back to carry it through. I think that this knife will serve you well in any future bone splitting.
Thankfully for me, the story had a happy ending. New knife, happy Mike. If you're trying to decide a brand to go with, I still, and will always, reccommend Shun. They have come down in price to match German competitors, offer wonderful edges, and is the only one to have such a wonderful lifetime warranty. The end.
Reader Comments (3)
Sorry to hear about the 'squash' incedent! I have found that people just look at my stuff and do not comment at all, I find it a bit stuffy, but then you have your share of friendly and remarkable creative group, like you that have responded nicely. I like my knives and have one for every occasion, and I love my Japanese ones, I hide those so no helpers cut off any extra ingredients into the food!
Beautiful knives. Am envious. Plotting to run out for some new knives. Your brother's comment is very insightful as well.
Great post I do too also love my shuns. I am fortunate to have the Bob Kramer ones, they are simply beautiful but yes very delicate. One day my wife dropped my knife in the sink and chipped the tip of the knife. I was so sad for days, the great thing is I was able to get over my sadness and repair the knife to new condition. I have also been scared to take my knives for resharpening at sur la table I'll have to take them down sometime to see how they handle them.